![handle is hein.journals/mlro114 and id is 1 raw text is:
A DEMOGRAPHIC THREAT?
PROPOSED RECLASSIFICATION OF ARAB
AMERICANS ON THE 2020 CENSUS
Khaled A. Beydoun*
INTRODUCTION
Arab Americans are white? This question-commonly posed as a
demonstration of shock or surprise-highlights the dissonance between how
Arab and white are discursively imagined and understood in the United
States today.
These four words also encapsulate the dilemma that currently riddles
Arab Americans. The population finds itself interlocked between formal
classification as white, and de facto recognition as nonwhite.I The Office of
Management and Budget (OMB), the government agency that oversees the
definition, categorization, and construction of racial categories,2 currently
counts people from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as white.'
The United States Census Bureau (Census Bureau), the agency responsible
for collecting and compiling demographic data about the American people,
adopts these definitions and classifications for the administration of its
* Assistant Professor of Law, Barry University Dwayne 0. Andreas School of Law.
Affiliated Faculty, University of California-Berkeley, Islamophobia Research & Documentation
Project. The author also served as a Subject Matter Expert for the U.S. Census Bureau,
providing analysis of the language, scope, and structure of the proposed Middle Eastern or
North African American (MENA) box.
1. Arab Americans are citizens of the United States who trace their ancestry back to
the Arab World. The Arab World presently encompasses nations in the Middle East and
North and East Africa where Arabic is commonly spoken. In addition to its fluid linguistic
boundaries, the Arab World is also a designation that refers to the twenty-three states that
are members to the Arab League.
2. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the U.S. Census Bureau are the
principal actors that construct per se definitions of race and racial categories. The
administrative making of race illustrates how [r]aces are not biologically differentiated
groupings but rather social constructions. IAN F. HANEY LOPEZ, WHITE BY LAW: THE LEGAL
CONSTRUCTION OF RACE xiii (1996).
3. Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race & Ethnicity,
OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET (October 30, 1997),
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards [http://perma.cc/28YV-VN2X].
1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/mlro114&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most